In the class warfare battle, the middle class is mortally wounded (Opinion from Clete Wetli)

The irony is that many of us still believe that the wealth will magically trickle down from the penthouse suite ...

An intrinsic component of our epic narrative, the American
Dream, has always been the stable strength of a growing and prosperous middle
class that has long served as the driving force for economic growth and expansion.

Until recently in our history, the American middle-class was
the envy of the world and the shining example of cooperation between
entrepreneurship, capital investment and labor.

But to borrow an old Southern colloquialism; our middle
class is shrinking faster than a duck on a June bug! Academics and pundits on
both sides of the political spectrum are enthusiastically pointing their accusatory
fingers at all types of straw men, but the truth is simply more insidious, yet banal.

Sadly, the reason for this middle class decline is a Seismic
shift in corporate philosophy coupled with a trickle-down trend of economic
policies that have done nothing more than widen the gap between rich and poor
Americans. The right-wing agenda of vilifying unions, deregulating Wall Street
and incentivizing corporate executive excess has exacerbated the divide.

As the fictional villain, Gordon Gekko sneered, "Greed is
good." Little did we suspect that this was more than an indictment of a few
1980s Wall Street bad apples, but it was more like a literal prophecy
foretelling a Great Recession that would come during the final years of the
George W. Bush presidency. Today, we have the spirit of Gekko embodied in the
poster children of the "1 percent" with folks like Mitt Romney and the infamous
Koch brothers.

Although a discussion of legislation regarding the Glass-Steagall
Act and other short-sighted economic policy is salient to this discussion, the
underlying culprit is a corporate business philosophy that puts short-term
shareholder profits above everything else.

Right now, American corporations are sailing upon an
ever-rising ocean of profits, but they refuse to make any type of long-term
investment or pay their workers anything but the lowest wage that they can get
away with.

This type of corporate myopia is why job growth remains
sluggish and Wall Street profits continue to break records. The shareholders
are doing a happy dance on the collective body of our bruised and diminishing
middle class workers.

CEO salaries have gone from being 20 times more than the
average worker in the 1950s to a breathtaking 170 times more in today's market.
Sadly, these are just averages that don't betray the real extravagances in disparity
like former J.C. Penney CEO, Ron Johnson, who was paid 1,795 times more than
his average workers. Of course, after a grueling 18 months on the job, Johnson
loaded up his golden parachute and jumped toward another mountain of cash.

This is not a horrible over-hyped anomaly; instead this
grotesque excess is the perceived birthright of American corporate aristocracy.
The irony is that many of us still believe that the wealth will magically
trickle down from the penthouse suite or that huge profits will incentivize
CEOs to cultivate jobs like over-caffeinated Johnny Appleseeds.

The truth is that the accumulation of excess wealth is a pathological
addiction like any other. At what point does wealth cross over into gluttonous
obsession? When will American workers demand their slice of the pie before an
insatiable executive appetite eats the last piece and the pie tin, too?

In Alabama, Gov. Robert Bentley gives away tax dollars to
try to get already-wealthy companies to relocate to our state with the implicit
promise that workers here are willing to be exploited and that they are readily
expendable.

It's time for companies to invest in people and long-term
growth ... the CEOs and shareholders are getting by just fine.

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